'Noles keep it close, fall shy

As he has all season, Toney Douglas gave Florida State life on Tuesday night and put the Seminoles in a position to do something few might have thought the Seminoles could.

Douglas' 3-pointer from the right side gave FSU a 2-point lead at Duke with less than 2 minutes and 30 seconds to play and it seemed for a moment like Florida State would earn another dramatic victory in a season full of them.

Duke, though, had other plans.

The No. 7 Blue Devils scored the following eight points and rallied for an 84-81 victory at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C.

Likely already a lock for the NCAA Tournament, FSU (22-8, 9-6 ACC) was merely hoping to bolster its case for earning a high tournament seed.

And the 24th-ranked 'Noles nearly pulled off the upset.

They led by as many as eight points in the first half and they carried a 40-34 lead into halftime.

FSU led, too, through the first six minutes of the second half before Duke (25-5, 11-4) tied it at 48 with 13:58 to play.

From that point, the teams traded momentum-swinging shot for momentum-swinging shot, and the game seemed destined to be decided in the final possession.

Duke junior Gerald Henderson wouldn't let it, however.

First, after Douglas' deep 3 gave FSU a 76-74 lead, Henderson made a 3 of his own to put Duke ahead to stay.

And then, after Douglas missed a 3 with less than 90 seconds to play, Henderson grabbed a long rebound, sprinted down the court and made a lay-up while he absorbed contact from FSU freshman center Solomon Alabi.

The foul was Alabi's fifth of the night, and Henderson, who finished with 21 points and 10 rebounds, converted the free-throw for a 3-point play that put the Devils back in control.

"You can't allow yourself to have those stretches where you're not performing well, and we had a couple of bad stretches tonight," FSU Coach Leonard Hamilton said during his post-game radio interview. "And it came back to bite us."

The defeat spoiled another superb effort from Douglas, who led all scorers with 27 points, 15 of them coming during the tense back-and-forth second half.

Douglas also had seven assists, matching a career high, and he made five 3-pointers.

The Seminoles, who had beaten Duke in their last visit to Cameron Indoor in 2007, appeared during the first half of the game unfazed about the hostile road environment.

That changed in the second half.

"I thought tonight we got a little frustrated at times," Hamilton said. "And showed some emotions that we hadn't shown.

"It's a learning, growing process but what we have to do now is evaluate this [and] learn from it."